I Want Them All

That night,

Lin Chongshu was lying with his head on Karin's mother's fair, plump lap, resting with his eyes closed, when a burst of wild laughter suddenly came from outside the cave.

Jugo had lost control again.

Karin's mother went rigid all over. Lin Chongshu had already rolled over and sat up, then turned and bit her exposed thigh.

Chakra and stamina surged into his body at the same time. Several strands of white hair fell over his forehead, and his pupils contracted into beastlike orange-yellow slits.

He flashed out of the cave as the system notification sounded in his mind.

[Detected that Jugo has developed intense negative emotions toward the host: hostility and fury. Reward extraction complete. Obtained: Natural Energy Sage Body +1.]

The sand and gravel on both sides rose flat from the ground and rushed toward the source of the laughter.

By the time dawn was near, he had finally beaten Jugo down.

Jugo lay on the ground, panting heavily. His injuries were worse than usual this time, but he could control his own cells and shift the damage around, so it would not be fatal.

He looked up at Lin Chongshu. There was no pain in his eyes, only gratitude.

Once again, this person had stopped him when he lost control. He had neither killed him nor given up on him.

Lin Chongshu forced himself to keep up his cool act and held out a hand to him. "It's fine. I told you, no matter how many times you go berserk in the future, I'll subdue you."

Then he turned and went back into the cave, found Karin's mother, and lowered his head to bite her shoulder.

Warm power flowed through his veins. His stamina seemed to have been refilled, and he let out a long breath before collapsing onto the bedding.

Over the next few days, Lin Chongshu kept searching for an effective way to subdue Jugo when he went berserk.

He tried all sorts of methods, but only water worked. It was not the most destructive, but it was the most effective.

He began combining Water Release with Sand Binding Coffin. Whenever Jugo went berserk, he first used sand to restrain him temporarily, then flooded him until he drowned.

During the day, he also began training Jugo to control his emotions.

Taking a page from Jiraiya's methods, he set a wooden plank atop a pointed peak shaped from sand and gravel. The two sat facing each other at opposite ends of the board, maintaining their balance while closing their eyes in meditation and using their chakra to harmonize the natural energy within their bodies.

The first time Jugo sat on it, he fell off in less than two minutes. The plank tipped over, and he sprawled face-first onto the sand. By the time he climbed back up, his eyes were already turning red.

Going berserk once a day had originally been enough. After he began emotional control training, he went berserk twice a day.

Lin Chongshu suspected that Jugo's chakra reserves were insufficient, leaving him unable to harmonize natural energy on his own. So he began training him to refine chakra as well. Drawing from his past-life experience, he taught him meditation and breath control, using deep, slow breaths to calm his heartbeat.

On the third day of training, the last genin died.

The system gave one final chime, adding a few hundredths to his stats before falling completely silent.

Jugo sat cross-legged on the plank with his eyes closed and lips tightly pressed together, controlling his emotions through his breathing.

"Practice properly," Lin Chongshu instructed before turning and entering the cave.

Karin's mother had already changed into the spare clothes from the genin's ninja gear bag.

The top was too small, stretched tightly over her body. Its hem barely covered the bottom of her ribs, leaving a strip of fair waist and her navel fully exposed.

The pants were short as well, leaving everything below her upper thighs bare. The old wound scar on her calf, now healed, still carried a faint pink hue.

With that red hair and her voluptuous figure, this outfit made her seem far more mature and alluring than she had been a few days ago in her burlap wrapping.

When she saw Lin Chongshu enter, she habitually knelt halfway to the ground and pressed her face against his thigh.

After rubbing against him for a while, she finally spoke in a small, tearful voice. "Can you save Karin? Kusagakure definitely won't let her go. As long as you save Karin, I'll do anything you want."

For the past few days, she had stood at the cave entrance, watching from afar as Lin Chongshu trained Jugo. She had been frantic with worry for a long time, yet she did not dare interrupt him.

Only now, after seeing that Jugo's training seemed to be working, did she dare bring it up to Lin Chongshu.

Karin was still alone in Kusagakure. The entire Chunin Exams squad had been wiped out. Once the news reached Kusagakure, those people would definitely investigate.

"I want them all..."

Karin's mother fell silent.

She lowered her head, remembering the life she had lived these past years in Kusagakure—treated like a tool, bitten by everyone, ordered around at will.

If Lin Chongshu had not appeared, Karin would have ended up walking the same path as her.

This man had a few unusual preferences, but he was the first person to treat her like a human being, and the first to heal her wounds.

With his strength, if he stayed in Kusagakure and wanted all of this, she would have no way to resist anyway.

He was only opposing Kusagakure like this for her sake.

Karin's mother could only persuade herself of that in her heart.

She closed her eyes and comforted herself again: in a few years, she would grow old. She would just treat it as a dream.